Misadventures in the Land of Fables #58
JACKDAW AND THE SONGBIRDS
Weeks elapsed between the first draft of the new fable, ‘Jackdaw and the Songbirds,’ and its completion. I had other commitments. And I also contrived to delete my website. But we’re back. In the interim, however, I had forgotten what had inspired the idea. Fortunately, I had kept some notes. The idea, it seems, was prompted by another of Elizabethan fabulist Arthur Golding’s translations.
‘Of the Ostrich and the Nightingale’ is a dispute about prestige and pre-eminence.
Two birds, the nightingale and the ostrich, hold themselves in such esteem neither can admit the other as their equal. The nightingale boasts its song has “assuaged the storms of lovers,” while the ostrich claims nations have used his feathers “for their ornament” as reward for bravery. To win the argument, the nightingale ‘defaces’ the ostrich of its feathers, proving that these were a superficial quality.
I have to say I didn’t expect the dispute to go in that direction. I assumed the author would favour the nightingale’s artistry because, this was my inclination, but instead this artist was portrayed as an arrogant little shit, and, well, that’s not unheard of. Still, I began to think of a nightingale’s music being challenged or resented, a scenario closer to Krylov’s ‘The Ass and the Nightingale,’ similar to one composed by Diderot; a denunciation of philistinism, I guess you might call it.
As dusk approaches, I can listen the blackbird sing from each corner of its territory. I also hear the raucous calls of rooks and jackdaws. The contrast is stark. I imagined a dispute, a difference of point of view between them, my old friend Jackdaw and the blackbird, but instead of competition between them, Jackdaw seeks to put one bird in its place by producing a rival. It doesn’t work out as he planned.
You can read the new fable here: ‘Jackdaw and the Songbirds’
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #73
James Thurber, ‘Fables For Our Times’ A few weeks ago I picked up a two volume collection of works by James Thurber, ‘Vintage Thurber.’ Among these works were the ‘Fables For Our Times.’ These were very nice. Fantastic, in the superlative if not the ‘wildly imaginative’ sense of the word. Where Ambrose Bierce is cynical […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #72
AMBROSE BIERCE’S ‘FANTASTIC FABLES’ ~~~ The title ‘Fantastic Fables’ is as misleading as the cover image. These are not ‘fantastic’ or ‘fantastical.’ You might call them whimsical if they weren’t so deeply misanthropic and if the characters weren’t figures of contemporary life, familiar objects of satire (politicians, clergy, doctors, judges). These are the caustic amusements […]
Aphorisms #4
~~~ “You are like the man who lay down to give his shadow a rest.” ~~~ This proverb in the second person feels like the application of a fable: ‘you’ are being criticised by way of comparison to a fable. But there is no such fable, nor indeed is there a ‘you’ because the object […]